A computer does not think, it feels nothing, and what it is said to "know"--bits of information all cast in the digital mode--has ...no fringe. Nor has it a memory, only storage room. On any point called for, the answer is all or none. Vagueness, intelligent confusion, original punning on words or ideas never occur, the internal hookups being unchangeable; they were determined once for all by the true minds that made the machine and program. When plugged in, the least elaborate computer can be relied on to work to the fullest extent of its capacity; the greatest mind cannot be relied on for the simplest thing; its variability is its superiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Computers were originally just supposed to be number-crunchers, but now their number-crunching has been harnessed in a thousand im...aginative ways to create new virtual machines, such as video games and word processors, in which the underlying number-crunching is almost invisible, and in which new powers seem quite magical. Our brains, similarly, weren't designed (except for some very recent peripheral organs) for word processing, but now a large portion--perhaps even the lion's share--of the activity that takes place in adult human brains is involved in a sort of word processing: speech production and comprehension, and the serial rehearsal and rearrangement of linguistic items, or better, their neural surrogates. And these activities magnify and transform the underlying hardware powers in ways that seem (from the "outside") quite magical.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

These people figured video was the Lord's preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. ..."He's in the de-tails," Sublett had said once. "You gotta watch for Him close."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past..., pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past--the portrayals of family life on such television programs as "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" and all the rest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The difference between digital and analogic forms is exemplified in the two different types of watches and clocks now available. A... digital watch presents the time in discrete units. It is either 12:57 or 12:58 (or some discrete unit in between, such as 12:57 and 10 seconds as opposed to 12:57 and 11 seconds). With the analogic watch, however, time is continuous. A person who sees the time as "12:57 and 10 seconds" on a digital watch, may see the time as "about one o'clock" on an analogic watch. A similar difference exists between a digital calculator and the analogic slide rule. The slide rule is excellent for making "approximations," but it cannot yield precise digital data.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Speedometers, for example, may be digital and give a numeric readout, or analog and produce a lengthening rectangle (or rotating p...ointer). The analog output is less precise, but puts one's speed in some perspective. An 82 and a 28 are almost indistinguishable, but a long rectangle is quite distinct from a short one, and if its length is changing, that too is manifest. The same trade-off is present with clocks and watches, digital timepieces producing precision, but lacking in all the associations a clockface can engender.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission a...s he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain... coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Pinball games were constrained by physical limitations, ultimately by the physical laws that govern the motion of a small metal ba...ll. The video world knows no such bounds. Objects fly, spin, accelerate, change shape and color, disappear and reappear. Their behavior, like the behavior of anything created by a computer program, is limited only by the programmer's imagination. The objects in a video game are representations of objects. And a representation of a ball, unlike a real one, never need obey the laws of gravity unless its programmer wants it to.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childh...ood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today's children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »